[The Discovery of the Source of the Nile by John Hanning Speke]@TWC D-Link bookThe Discovery of the Source of the Nile CHAPTER IV 34/35
Thence, having spent the night in the jungle, we next morning pushed into the cultivated district of Rubuga, and put up in some half-deserted tembes, where the ravages of war were even more disgusting to witness than at Tura.
The chief, as I have said, was a slave, placed there by the Arabs on the condition that he would allow all traders and travellers to help themselves without payment as long as they chose to reside there.
In consequence of this wicked arrangement, I found it impossible to keep my men from picking and stealing.
They looked upon plunder as their fortune and right, and my interference as unjustifiable. By making another morning and evening march, we then reached the western extremity of this cultivated opening; where, after sleeping the night, we threaded through another forest to the little clearance of Kigue, and in one more march through forest arrived in the large and fertile district of Unyanyembe, the centre of Unyamuezi--the Land of the Moon--within five miles of Kaze which is the name of a well in the village of Tbora, now constituted the great central slave and ivory merchants' depot.
My losses up to this date (23d) were as follows:--One Hottentot dead and five returned; one freeman sent back with the Hottentots, and one flogged and turned off; twenty-five of Sultan Majid's gardeners deserted; ninety-eight of the original Wanyamuezi porters deserted; twelve mules and three donkeys dead.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|